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In 1995, Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a time-obsessed systems engineer, who travels worldwide resolving productivity problems at FedEx depots. He is in a long-term relationship with Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt), with whom he lives in Memphis, Tennessee. Although the couple wants to get married, Chuck's busy schedule interferes with their relationship. A Christmas with relatives is interrupted when Chuck is summoned to resolve a problem in Malaysia. While flying through a violent storm, his airplane crashes into the Pacific Ocean. Chuck is able to escape the sinking plane and is saved by an inflatable life-raft but in the process, loses the raft's emergency locator transmitter. He clings to the life-raft, loses consciousness, and floats all night before being washed up on an island. After he awakens, he explores the island and soon discovers that it is uninhabited.

Several FedEx packages from the crashed plane wash up on the shore, as well as the corpse of one of the pilots (which he buries). He initially tries to signal for rescue and makes an escape attempt with the remnants of his life-raft, but he cannot pass the powerful surf and the coral reefs surrounding the island. He searches for food, water, shelter, and opens the packages, finding a number of potentially useful items. He leaves one package, with a pair of wings painted on it, unopened. During a first attempt to make fire, Chuck receives a deep wound to his hand. In anger and pain, he throws several objects, including a Wilsonvolleyball from one of the packages. A short time later he draws a face in the bloody hand print on the ball, names it Wilson and begins talking to it.

Four years later, Chuck is dramatically thinner, bearded, his hair is longer, and he is wearing a loincloth. He has become adept at spearing fish and making fires. He also has regular conversations and arguments with Wilson, his volleyball friend. A large section from a portable toilet washes up on the island; Chuck uses it as a sail in the construction of a raft. After spending some time building and stocking the raft and deciding when the weather conditions will be optimal (using an analemma he has created in his cave to monitor the time of year), he launches, using the sail to overcome the powerful surf. After some time on the ocean, a storm nearly tears his raft apart. The following day, Wilson falls from the raft and is cast away into the ocean, leaving Chuck overwhelmed by loneliness. Later, he is found drifting by a passing cargo ship.

Upon returning to civilization, Chuck learns that he has long been given up for dead; his family and acquaintances have held a funeral, and Kelly has since married Chuck's dentist and has a daughter. After reuniting with Kelly, the pair profess their love for each other but, realizing a future together would be impossible because of her commitment to her family, they part. Kelly gives Chuck the keys to the car they once shared. After buying a new volleyball, Chuck travels to Canadian, Texas to return the unopened FedEx package to its sender. The house at the address is empty, so he leaves the package at the door with a note saying that the package saved his life. He departs and stops at a remote crossroads. A woman passing by in a pickup truck stops to explain where each road leads. As she drives away, Chuck notices the illustration on her truck is identical to the one on the parcel. Chuck is left looking down each road and then towards the departing woman in the truck, smiling as the wind blows in her direction.

The film was not shot consecutively. Hanks gained 50 pounds during pre-production to make him look like a pudgy, middle-aged man. After a majority of the film was shot, production was halted for a year so that he could lose the weight and grow his hair and beard to look like he had been living on the island for years. During the year-long hiatus, Zemeckis used the same film crew to make another film, What Lies Beneath.[2]

Cast Away was filmed on Monuriki, one of the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji.[3] It is in a subgroup of the Mamanuca archipelago, which is sited off the coast of Viti Levu, Fiji's largest island. The island became a tourist attraction following the film's release. After Chuck's return, it is identified by Kelly as being "about 600 miles south of the Cook Islands," but there is actually no land between the southern-most Cook Islands of Mangaia and Antarctica.

The film essentially begins and ends in the same location, on the Arrington Ranch in the Texas Panhandle south of the city of Canadian, Texas.[4]

The producers made up a list of seemingly useless items that would be in the packages that Noland recovered: party dress, ice skates, divorce papers, video tapes, and other sundries. They turned this over to a group of survival experts who decided how the protagonist might be able to use them.

The film's minimal score was composed by Alan Silvestri for which he won a Grammy Award in 2002. The film's soundtrack is most notable for its lack of score and creature sound effects (such as bird song or insect sounds) while Chuck is on the island, which is intended to reinforce the feeling of isolation.[5]Cast Away contains no original musical score until Chuck escapes the island. However, there is a Russian choral piece heard near the start of the film that was not composed or even recorded by Silvestri, so it does not appear on the film's soundtrack list. It is a traditional Russian song written by Lev Knipper called "Oh, My Field" ("Polyushko, Polye") and it is available on various collections of Red Army hymns. The tracks in Silvestri's score are as follows:

"Cast Away" – 3:44

"Wilson, I'm Sorry" – 1:39

"Drive to Kelly's" – 3:54

"Love of My Life" – 1:47

"What the Tide Could Bring" – 3:39

"Crossroads" – 2:08

"End Credits" – 7:29

The official soundtrack CD is an anthology of musical pieces from all films up to that point directed by Zemeckis and scored by Silvestri. The only track from Cast Away itself is the theme from the end credits.[6]

FedEx paid no money for product placement in the film.[7] However, they provided access to their facilities (Memphis, Los Angeles and Moscow) as well as airplanes, trucks, uniforms and logistical support. A team of FedEx marketers oversaw production through more than two years of filming.[8] FedEx CEO Fred Smith made an appearance as himself for the scene where Chuck is welcomed back, which was filmed on location at FedEx's home facilities in Memphis, Tennessee. The idea of a story based on a FedEx plane crashing gave the company "a heart attack at first," but the overall story was seen as positive and the company saw an increase in brand awareness in Asia and Europe following the film's release.[9]

In the film, Wilson the volleyball serves as Chuck Noland's personifiedfriend and only companion during the four years that Noland spends alone on a deserted island.[10][11][12] The character was created by screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. While researching for the film, he consulted with professional survival experts, and then chose to deliberately strand himself for one week on an isolated beach in the Gulf of California, to force himself to search for water and food, and obtain his own shelter. During this time, a volleyball washed up on shore. This was the inspiration for the film's inanimate companion. From a theatrical point of view, Wilson also serves to realistically allow dialogue in a one-person-only situation.[13][14]

One of the original volleyball props was sold at auction after release of the film for $18,500 to the ex-CEO of FedEx Office, Ken May. At the time of the film's release, Wilson launched its own joint promotion centered on the fact that one of its products was "co-starring" with Tom Hanks. Wilson manufactured a volleyball with a reproduction of the bloodied handprint face on one side. It was sold for a limited time during the film's initial release and continues to be offered on the company's website.[15]

Cast Away received critical acclaim and has a rating of 90% on Rotten tomatoes based on 154 reviews with an average rating of 7.4 out of 10 with the consensus "Flawed but fascinating, Cast Away offers an intelligent script, some of Robert Zemeckis' most mature directing, and a showcase performance from Tom Hanks."[16] The film also has a score of 73 on Metacritic based on 32 reviews.[17]

Cast Away opened in 2,774 theaters in North America and grossed $28,883,406 with an average of $10,412 per theater on its opening weekend.[18] For the four day Christmas long holiday weekend, it took in a total of $39,852,075.[19] The film kept performing well and ended up earning $233,632,142 domestically and $196,000,000 internationally for a total of $429,632,142, well above its production budget of $90 million.[20]

Media executive Lloyd Braun of ABC Studios first suggested the idea of a Cast Away-type television series at a dinner party in 2003.[27] Thom Sherman later pitched the idea for Cast Away – The Series, but never developed the idea.[27] The concept was later developed and pitched with the title Nowhere, which later turned into the ABC show Lost.[27]

In the episode: Bigfat of the animated series Family Guy, Peter goes missing in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash, and as his family decides to look for him. Stewie finds a doll that Peter made and compares it to Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. A following cutaway gag shows Chuck Noland cutting a hole in Wilsons mouth. He bursts into tears, apologizes to him and prepares to give him a blowjob.

In the episode "The Odyssey" in the first season of Arrow, after missing their escape plane and being stranded on the island of Lian Yu, Oliver Queen says to Slade Wilson "I'm stranded on an island, and my only friend is named Wilson".